Speaker 1: What's going on. Thank you so much for listening to
this podcast. It is heard live every day from noon
to three on WBT Radio in Charlotte. And if you
want exclusive content like invitations to events, the weekly live stream,
my daily show prep with all the links, become a patron,
go to dpeakclendershow dot com. Make sure you hit the
subscribe button. Get every episode for free right to your
smartphone or tablet, And again, thank you so much for
your support. Full disclosure, I did not listen in on
the Supreme Court oral arguments that were heard on this case,
but I'm going to talk with you as if I did.
But I mean, we have the details of the case,
but I did not listen to the oral arguments that
were heard about the debate over whether elementary schools can
skip parental notice when the teachers are reading the dirty
books to your kids. Okay, so here's the CNN story
for Billy MoG's mogus magis moj How would you pronounce
that m O G E s mojes. Billy Mogis, it's
a woman and for her, the fight with a Washington,
DC area school district over the reading of LGB t
Q plus books in elementary school as a matter of faith.
She said, quote, we have no hate for anyone.
Speaker 2: She says.
Speaker 1: What we're saying is that we as parents do not
want our children to be exposed to these ideas at
this age because they are not ready for it. She
is one of the Christian parents who sued Maryland's largest
school district over the policy in a case that has
gone to the US Supreme Court. But for the Montgomery
COUNTYBLIC schools and for civil rights groups, giving way to
mojes would lead to an administrative nightmare. It would require
teachers to foresee and alert parents to any concept discussed
in the classroom that might possibly conflict with their religious beliefs. See,
this is malicious compliance, That's what this is. This is
a form of malicious compliance. Like I can't possibly know
that I'm going to, you know, bring this book into
the classroom and do a story time reading session with
your six year old? How could I possibly know the
if only teachers, I have an idea? How about this?
Because you know me, I'm all about solutions. How about
we have teachers draw up I don't know, like some
sort of an agenda, like a plan. Teachers could have
like a plan, and then you would know what they're
going to be teaching throughout the semester and throughout the
year and call it like a lesson plan or something.
We could Yeah, we could draw those up, and then
if you want to teach the dirty books, we would
know that the dirty books are on your lesson plan, right,
because there isn't any reason why you should just, like
on a whim, pick up the story about you know,
Johnny has two dads to read to the the second graders.
That shouldn't be something that's just oh, you know what,
I was planning this other thing. But instead, you know,
let's let's learn about transgenderism.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: You realize these topics are not popular to be read
to young kids, right, And if you are not aware
of this, then I would submit you should not be
teaching the youth because it indicates you either have an
ideological blind spot or you are not very bright. Okay,
so I don't think you should be charged with teaching
the future generations. By the way, I just saw where
was it Linda McMahon, the education secretary. She said something
like only forty percent of the kids can read a
grade level in third grade like that, like whatever you're doing,
stop doing it. Okay, it's not working. So this is
the malicious compliance aspect of it, because they say, oh
my gosh, if we have to, we have to stop
the class every single time we would have to, we
would have to look ahead and know that your little
kid is asking about Johnny's two dads like no, and
North Carolina lawmakers actually had this debate when they were
going over this issue what last year because this is
what is thrown out there as some sort of an excuse.
It's not persuasive. Okay, it's not persuasive at all. And
that's why North Carolina lawmakers recognizing that it's not persuasive,
they said, obviously, if something comes up in the class time,
when you know, a kid raises their hand and says,
you know, hey, what's the deal with this, then the
teacher can say something in response to that. But the
teacher is not to bust out gender queer and start
reading it to your third graders. Parents need to know
what it is that you are teaching their kids. And
I'm sorry if you feel like you know you're the
professional and you should be trusted, I'm sorry, I really am.
I am sorry, but recognize where we are. Those days
are long gone for a variety of reasons. If I
ever got in trouble, my parents took the side of
the teacher immediately. Those days are gone. And I know,
like I have family, me a lot, most of my
family members are teachers, and they say, like some of
the parents are like they're the worst. They oh, no,
not my Johnny. He wouldn't do that, right, And they
fight back on any kind of report that's negative about
their kid, that their kid couldn't possibly do this bad thing,
you know, and teachers have to deal with that aspect
of it as well. But particularly regarding these books, the
only ones that are the only teachers or librarians that
are pushing this stuff are activists. They are the only
ones left because when the laws start getting passed that
say you can't do this sort of thing, and parents
are starting to protest, most teachers who are not activists,
they would recognize if they weren't already like not on
board with the program in the in first place, they
would have recognized and been like, yeah, this is this
is not worth it. We got backlash coming, this is
not worth it, So I'm not going to do this.
You know, these books as part of the curriculum. I'm
not going to do it as part of my lesson plan.
The only ones that are still doing it are doing
it in defiance of the parental opposition and the legislative opposition.
And that means that you are doing it for an
ideological reason, which means you really want these kids who
are not yours. You really want those kids to learn
about something because you think it's important that they know
this stuff, even though their parents are like, they're too
young for that. I don't want you teaching my kid that.
I don't need you teaching my kid about incest and
rape and gay sex or any sex. You shouldn't be
talking about that with my third grader. So the Supreme
Court is now weighing these weighing this case, right, these
these arguments that on the one hand, you have parents
that are claiming that this violates their faith. They don't
want their kid being exposed to some of this stuff.
And on the other hand, you got the government saying
we have to be able to expose your kid to
this stuff because otherwise we would have to do a
lot more paperwork and the lesson plans would be more
difficult to draw. Up. It creates an administrative burden for us.
So sorry, we have to expose your kids to transgenderism.
The Supreme Court weighing these arguments in the most significant
religious appeal that justices have confronted in years, a case
that sweeps in the struggle over transgender rights, the ability
of parents to influence school curriculum, and questions about the
role of faith in the public sphere. This is one
of the things that the activist crowd on the left
does not either understand or they refuse to a knowledge,
which is Christians are parents too, and in a government
run system, they too can affect the curriculum. You do
not own the curriculum because you are a secularist or
an atheist or something that you don't own the curriculum.
Speaker 2: Sorry, you don't.
Speaker 1: It is a public school, and that means people in
the public with whom you disagree they get to have
an influence too.
Speaker 2: That's the deal.
Speaker 1: See, this isn't about, you know, public education, It's about
an education system that is controlled by the left. What
have I always said about the K twelve government model?
The problem is the model. People keep trying to fix
this thing. They keep trying to make tweaks and pass policies,
and we'll do this and direct that. The problem is
the model. And until the society recognizes that, I don't
think this gets any better.
Speaker 2: We're going to keep having these fights, all right.
Speaker 1: If you're listening to this show, you know I try
to keep up with all sorts of current events, and
I know you do too. And you've probably heard me
say get your news from multiple sources. Why Well, because
it's how you detect media bias, which is why I've
been so impressed with ground News. It's an app, and
it's a website and it combines news from around the
world in one place so you can compare coverage and
verify information. You can check it out at check dot ground,
dot news slash pete. I put the link in the
podcast description too. I started using ground News a few
months ago and more recently chose to work with them
as an affiliate because it lets me see clearly how
stories get covered and by whom. The blind spot feature
shows you which stories get ignored by the left and
the right. See for yourself check dot ground, dot news
slash pete. Subscribe through that link and you'll get fifteen
percent off any subscription I use the vantage plan to
get unlimited access to every feature your subscription then not
only helps my but it also supports ground news as
they make the media landscape more transparent. Alrighty, So the
Supreme Court hearing this case today about parental rights and
whether a school district should be allowed to read sexually
graphic or inappropriate or age inappropriate material to your kid,
or should you be able to opt out in the
school district Montgomery Montgomery County public schools in Maryland. They're like,
we can't possibly manage this kind of an opt out system.
The parents who are suing are relying in part on
a nineteen seventy two president in which the Supreme Court
allowed Amish families to remove their children from school after
the eighth grade. This was despite a law in Wisconsin
that required students to remain enrolled in school until they
were sixteen. So the Amish were like, no, we take
our kids out, you don't get to keep them. And
it went to the US Supreme Court and the Supreme
Court said, there are a lot it's their religious.
Speaker 2: Faith, they can take them out.
Speaker 1: There's also another component here, and I don't know if
it was addressed in the oral arguments. I did not
see it addressed in this CNN article which is about
the coercive nature of the K twelve setting, which was really,
if I recall correctly, it was the lynchpin in the
arguments about saying the pledge before school starts, you know,
at the beginning of the school day, Like when I
was growing up, we would we'd all stand in the
you know, stand up at our desks, whether it was elementary, junior, high,
high school, whatever, everybody would stand, we would do the
pledge of allegiance. And then that was struck down. And
the reason why was because it was compelled speech. Because
the very nature of the K twelve government school setting
is coercive for the kids. Simply being in that environment
is a coercive factor. So one of the parents suing
Billy Mojetz stresses that she is not asking the schools
to stop reading the material, only to allow parents with
religious objections to opt their students out. So this isn't
even this should lay beaar the lie that oh, book bend,
book ben She's not even trying to ban the books.
She's not even saying, you know, put up a special
section over there behind like a velvet rope or something
that my kid doesn't get access to without my permission.
She's not even saying that, she's just saying, I want
to be able to take my kid out if you're
going to read this kind of material to them. Most states,
including Maryland, already have law in place allowing parents to
pull their children from sex education. Montgomery County schools originally
permitted opt outs, so they used to do this, but
then they said.
Speaker 2: It's just it's unworkable.
Speaker 1: We just we cannot figure out how to not read
this stuff to your kid. Oh, it's just too it's
just unworkable. Some schools, for example, experienced unsustainably high numbers
of absent students, and so they took that as an
excuse to force them to listen to the material, rather
than an indication that a lot of kids and parents
didn't want.
Speaker 2: To hear it.
Speaker 1: The school district argues that the need to shuttle students
in and out of the classroom would moreover disrupt those classrooms. Okay,
so moving the kids around in the classrooms is going
to be it's going to be so unworkable. It's so
disruptive because you have so many kids that don't want
to participate, or their parents don't want them to participate,
or whatever. I'm going to offer a potential solution, don't
read the books.
Speaker 2: How about that.
Speaker 1: If you're noticing these problems with this kind of thing,
then maybe you just don't do the kind.
Speaker 2: Of thing right. But we have to pete. See.
Speaker 1: Aha, there you go. That's the proof that you are
an activist, not a teacher. No parent is opting their
kid out of the multiplication tables. They're opting their kids
out of this stuff, and you finding excuses to force
the parents and their kids to hear the stuff that
they don't want to hear, to the point where it's
disrupting your classes because so many kids don't want to
participate paid in it. That should be the signal to
you that you should not be doing this thing. But
the fact that you are putting your own desire to
indoctrinate i'm sorry to educate over what the parent wants,
that makes you the activist. As part of its English curriculum,
Montgomery County approved a handful of books, or as I
like to say, they curated some books. See, because that's
what libraries do. They curate Because there are a lot
of books in the world. You may not be aware
of this. People have been writing books for a really
long time, like thousands of years almost now, so they've
been writing a lot of books. There are lots of
printed copies of these books. They're all over the place,
and you do not have enough space on the shelves
to house all of the books ever written. So you
have to choose which books you want to have in
your library. You have to choose which books you want
to read to the kids so they curate that. I
don't accuse you of banning the books that you decided
not to include in your curriculum. I didn't accuse you
of banning well, I don't know to kill a mockingbird
when you cut it from your curriculum. Here's a great idea.
How about making an escape to a really special and
secluded getaway in western North Carolina. Just a quick drive
up the mountain and Cabins of Ashville is your connection.
Whether you're celebrating an anniversary, a honeymoon, maybe you want
to plan a memorable proposal, or get family and friends
together for a big old reunion. Cabins of Asheville has
the ideal spot for you where you can reconnect with
your loved ones and the things that truly matter. Nestled
within the breath taking fourteen thousand acres of the Pisga
National Forest, their cabins offer a serene escape in the
heart of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Centrally located between Ashville
and the entrance of the Great Smoky Mountain National Park.
It's the perfect balance of seclusion and proximity to all
the local attractions with hot time fireplaces, air conditioning, smart TVs,
Wi Fi grills, outdoor tables and your own private covered porch.
Speaker 2: Choose from thirteen.
Speaker 1: Cabins, six cottages, two villas, and a great lodge with
eleven king sized bedrooms. Cabins of Ashville has the ideal
spot for you for any occasion, and they have pet
friendly accommodations. Call her text eight two eight, three, six,
seven seventy sixty eight or check out all there is
to offer at cabins Offashville dot com and make memories
that'll last a lifetime. Got some messages on the Twitter machine.
These are Pete tweets from It's all a distraction, who says,
let's replace the dirty books with the Bible and see
if the teachers and the ACLU would be okay with that.
Speaker 2: I doubt it.
Speaker 1: Eric says, it must make things easy to be able
to mandate your product after the market overwhelmingly rejects it.
Nobody wants to read these books, I know. Let's put
them in the classrooms, chu chin. So, as part of
its English curriculum, Montgomery County approved, or as I say, curated,
a handful of books in twenty twenty two that are
at issue in the case. Okay, so this is a
new development. One is called Prince and Knight. It tells
the story of a prince, and the prince does not
want to marry any of the princesses in his realm,
but he does fall in love with a knight, a
little dude on dude action.
Speaker 2: There.
Speaker 1: Another's called Born Ready. It tells the story of Penelope,
a character who likes skateboarding and wearing Beggy jeans, so
obviously Penelope is a dude. When Penelope tells his mother
this is CNN, tells his mother that he is a boy,
he is accepted. When Penelope's brother questions Penelope's gender identity,
their mother hugs both children and whispers.
Speaker 2: Not everything needs to make sense. This is about love.
Speaker 1: The school district told the court that the books are
used like any other book in curriculum, placed on the
shelves for students to find on their own, and also
available for teachers to incorporate into reading groups or read
alouds at their discussion for a discretion. Yeah, so we
just put them on the shelves. They were just over there,
and if a kid happens to stumble across the entire
wing of the LGBT plus variety of books, then they
will be able to find them. But it's totally self directed, unless,
of course, like I'm choosing to read it to your kid.
What's the problem. The district and its allies argue that
simply exposing students to ideas can't possibly be a burden
on religion. That well, if the religion teaches you that
you are made in the image and likeness of God
and you are his creation, your body is a temple,
right then yeah, that actually would run a foul of
the religious concepts being promoted by the parents. And once again,
you're not their parents. You're the teacher. They are the parents.
They have control over that child. See an A goes
on to report that's because in order to establish such
a burden, the parents must demonstrate that they or their
children were coerced to act or believe in a way
that's contrary to their religion. See me reading this book
to you telling your kid that everything that you're teaching
them is not true. That's not coercion. I'm not coercing them.
But also, they can't leave the class, they can't opt out.
This is their argument. By the way, let me read
this before I lose track of it. Megan mccardal, she
is I think she's with the Washington Post. Yes, a
columnist at the Washington Post, and she calls this quote
puzzling from the ACLUS David Cole, who is defending Montgomery
County's refusal to let parents opt their young kids out
of reading these books. Here's what the acl you guys said, quote,
No one is obligated to send their kids to public school.
Speaker 2: Wait what really?
Speaker 1: I kind of feel like that. I kind of feel
like that's not true.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: Don't parents get in trouble. There's a whole thing like
truancy about it. If your kid doesn't show up to school, Oh,
you can send them to private school, but you can't
have any of the tax money with the vouchers to
do that. See, we're giving you options here, he says.
But if the court rules that religious parents can micro
manage the education of their children in public school, even
where the effect is to undermine the school's ability to
do the job it needs to do for all of
its students, they will seriously undermine the ability of public
schools to do the.
Speaker 2: Work they need to do.
Speaker 1: So again, the answer here seems to me to be
stop teaching these books, right, stop using the books? She asks,
what job requires every kid to read these books? Unless
that job is overriding the religious values of the parents
in favor of values selected by the school, That is correct.
Speaker 2: That's their mission.
Speaker 1: Their mission is to indoctrinate on these cultural issues, because
these are activists in the teaching core. Does the ACLU
now believe that enforcing community values on dissenters is the
job of public school and that dissenters from those values
should leave if they don't like it. I gotta say,
if the ACLU and Montgomery County win this battle, they
may lose the war because now I don't see any
argument against vouchers right.
Speaker 2: No more.
Speaker 1: If you win this argument, that no one is obligated
to send their kids to public school, then I'd like
my tax money back, please, thank you. And I'd like
to send my kid to a school that's not teaching
them what you're demanding they learn. Because it's not like
a parent is saying I don't want my kid to
learn to read. They're saying my kid is not learning
to read because you're focused on all of this other crap.
Schools are Oh, hang on a second, let me back up.
Reading about LGBTQ plus Q characters in a book the
school's allies say does neither. It doesn't coerce kids or
parents to act or believe in any kind of way.
But again, as I mentioned earlier, the very setting, the
atmosphere of K twelve government schools is coercive by nature.
They ring bells to tell you to walk. They punish
you if you don't do things or do things. Schools
are charged with educating the entire population, and to do
that effectively, they can't carve up the curriculum according to
each parent's religious beliefs, said Jason walta deputy general counsel
at the National Education Association the Teachers' Union, which is
also on board with the activism here they filed a
brief along with other groups in support of the school district.
That is at the very heart of having a pluralistic democracy.
See once again, we want a public school model, a
government controlled model, with us in charge of it.
Speaker 2: The position.
Speaker 1: We set the agenda, we set the curriculum. That's why
they don't want vouchers. They don't want your kid to
have a choice to go to another school because then
they can't control the curriculum. They're trying to raise up
the next generation in the revolution. That's the point. And
they can dress it up in any other way they
want to, with language like you know, making better people,
or this or that, whatever, it doesn't matter. You are
trying to impose these values into the next generations. And
we all know why you would do that. You can
do it in the benign form of today's you know
word or this month's character trait is trust or truth
or something right.
Speaker 2: Just watch a CMS meeting.
Speaker 1: They bring these kids down there and they recite their
little essay on what the this month's character trait is.
Speaker 2: What's the point of that.
Speaker 1: It's it's to indoctor and a certain value set in
the kids well, now, you, being a public school, you
have to take into account that if the values you
are imprinting on the next generation are actually shared by
the parents who are sending their kids there. All right,
So spring is here a time of renewal and celebrations.
You've got graduations, weddings, anniversaries and especial days for mom
and dad. Your family's making memories that are going to
last a lifetime. But let me ask you, are all
of those treasured moments from days gone by? Are they
hidden away on old VCR tapes, eight millimeter films, photos slides?
Are they preserved? Because over time, these precious memories can
fade and deteriorate, losing the magic of yesterday. At Creative Video,
they help you protect what matters most. Their expert team
digitizes your cherished family moments and transfers them onto a
USB drive, freezing them in time so they can be
enjoyed for generations to come. I urge you do not
wait until it's too late. This spring celebrates your past.
Visit Creative Video today and let them preserve your legacy
with the love and care that it deserves. Creative Video
preserving family memories since nineteen ninety seven located in mint Hill,
just off four to eighty five. Mail orders are accepted
to get all the details that createavideo dot Com emailspt
at the petecalendershow dot com talking about the Supreme Court
oral arguments on the dirty books that Montgomery County, Maryland
really demand your kids here, some of the school's allies
are quoting heavily and perhaps counterintuitively, according to CNN from
a high profile decision from the Supreme Court three years ago,
which sided with a high school football coach who you
may recall, lost his job when he offered prayers on
the fifty yard line. He offered prayers on the fifty
yard line extracurricular activity, not coerced. Didn't tell people they
had to go pray. He just went to go pray.
And other kids who wanted, the players, coaches who wanted
to pray with him, they all went out there and
prayed with him, and he got fired for it. In
that case, the Court's six conservatives lined up to reinstate
the coach, who became widely known as the praying coach.
The twenty twenty two opinion has a lot to say
about what counts for religious coercion and what does not.
Neil Gorsch had written at the time, quote, learning how
to tolerate speech or prayer of all kinds is part
of learning how to live in a pluralistic society. Of course,
some will take offense to certain forms of speech or
prayer they are sure to encounter, But offense does not
equate to coercion. See, I would submit there is a
difference between a teacher doing it as a class exercise
versus a coach after a game who goes out and
prays and welcomes anybody to join him. Like, those are
different situations. You're not getting cut from the team if
you don't go out and pray with the coach, Terry
Shilling wrote at The Daily Wire. Shilling is a parental
rights advocate and president of the American Principles Project. Terry
Shilling wrote parents are the primary educators of their children
and that vocation does not stop when kids begin to
attend school. The Board of Education added story books that
introduce gender ideology and sexuality to children. By the way,
this wokeism. It is a religion. It has all the
hallmarks of a religion. Okay, so I would submit it
is the same as reading the Bible. These storybooks are
they were exposing these kids as young as three and
four years old. These storybooks are transparently part of an
activist push to introduce children to same sex relationships, transgender ideology,
and LGBTQ vocabulary at a startlingly young age. Another book
in the curriculum, My Rainbow. That's about a transgender identifying
boy's desire to have long hair to fit in with
the cisgender girls. So a boy wants to grow his
hair out so he looks like a girl and fits
in with the girls. Jacob's Room to Choose that's about
a cross dressing boy whose school accommodates him by abolishing
gendered bathrooms. Another one focuses on complex adult topics of
sexuality and gender identity. Called Love Violet focuses on a
same sex relationship between elementary school classmates. Pride Puppy instructs
readers to identify leather under leather underwear, a lip ring,
an intersexs flag, and a drag king in its illustrations.
These are cartoons, right, designed to familiarize children with the concepts.
That's the point. There is no other point. What are
your words? That's another book that one encourages kids to
change their pronouns. Another one called Intersection allies that one's
got a forward by critical race theorist and activists Kimberly Crenshaw.
The storybooks are examples of radical propaganda written by progressive
activists to shape the hearts and minds of the next generation.
I need a quick clarification here. What phase are we in.
Are we in the phase of it's not happening, or
are we in the phase that it's happening but it's
so rare. Or are we in the phase of, Okay,
it is happen but here's why that's a good thing.
I've lost track what phase we're in on this. I
kind of feel like we're bouncing around a little bit.
Shilling goes on to say when public schools add storybooks
that teach gender ideology as truth, the state has violated
the right of parents to raise their children in their
religious tradition, along with teaching them the corresponding religious beliefs
about gender, human sexuality, and the meaning of marriage. Right,
if you're going to tell a four year old that
they can be the opposite sex, then you should also
tell the kid that most people do not believe that,
and that science says you actually cannot be the opposite sex.
You should also, like, if you want to talk about
gender identity, transgenderism issues, if you want to teach this subject,
approach this subject with the students, then you, as an educator,
must provide the entire debate. You have to provide them.
Dare I say both sides? You have to otherwise that's
not education.
Speaker 2: Well, they get enough of that at home.
Speaker 1: You don't know that. You don't know that, and you
say you don't know that. That's why you have to
teach all this stuff. That's your excuse for teaching all
this stuff. It's your excuse for keeping all of the
transitioning social transitioning secret from the parents. Is because you
don't know. This is what you guys say. You don't
know if parents at home are going to support it
or not. So we're going to do it in the school,
so this way we can counteract whatever's happening at home
because you don't know. So now you can't say that
they're going to get this training at home, they're going
to get this other side at home, because you don't
know that. All I ask for is a single standard. Right,
that's all I'm asking for. All Right, that'll do it
for this episode. Thank you so much for listening. I
could not do the show without your support and the
support of the businesses that advertise on the podcast, so
if you'd like, please support them too and tell them
you heard it here. You can also become a patron
at my Patreon page or go to dpecleanershow dot com. Again,
thank you so much for listening, and don't break anything
while I'm gone.